The Dream And It's Interpretation

Daniel states to the king that the dream is not known by any method or power of man, but is given him by the one God of heaven that has the ability over all the wise men of his court to reveal secrets and give revelation to those to whom He desires. Daniel then recounts the dream in its four parts. Daniel states that he does not interpret the dream for profit, but that he does so only to save the lives of his friends; (Counting worldly rewards nothing in comparison to the gift of God to interpret - for the salvation of his life and his friend's lives.)

There are four kingdoms in series here as parts of the same image or "statue", important to note is that the dream was given to the king after he was wondering what would happen in the future - and this dream is interpreted by God faithfully. The series of four worldly kingdoms built into the one form or image comes to an end with another kingdom, the "stone cut out without hands" that begins at a point in the making of these kingdoms and causes the downfall of all the authority of the gold, silver brass and iron (with clay) kingdoms forming this image to which these kingdoms were raised up to create. This last kingdom of stone fills the whole earth and is never replaced by another - the authority found in the stone grows and lasts forever.

Daniels interpretation of the dream is so as to explain that the four kingdoms to come (which we have learned represent Babylon, the Persian empire, the empire of Greece and the Roman Empire) occur in series. Each replaces the former; it is also the case that the image itself the lower down we go are more base in nature. We equate the setting up of the image to a sequence of weakening restraint on the quality of morality of the empires - or that Rome is far more base than Babylon. However, in building such an (as great) image one would start at the bottom and build upwards; So there is a hint that the more base nature is the intent of the image's construction.

The image itself is clearly an image of some deity (there is supposedly good reason to believe it to be Ishtar, a female deity.) In any case, these four empires all shared the solar religions in a form of many cults.

The stone that breaks the authority of the empires is made at some time in the series of kingdoms, and we may discern that the kingdom is set up in the time of Rome, because there is the presence of the "potters clay" - an analogy to the prophecy in Jeremiah ch18. This stone represents the Kingdom of God, and the clay the people that are the elect of God. They as a "peculiar people" are called to be separate from the empire and its state religion, as well as called to serve God. They do not cleave to the state for their justification but have gained their freedom to worship from God true, not by permission by the Roman state They are seen mixed in with the iron, they are a people scattered throughout the empire, not a physical nation but one spiritual.

There is also a sequence that we see in the restraint upon the first four seals that is loosed over the bride of Christ in revelation, and we have in them the dragon's creation of four NT kingdoms to leaven the elect to which these four are the OT equivalent running in parallel.

The sequence of four kingdoms comes after two other kingdoms to which Israel had also survived from captivity, namely Egypt and Assyria. These are not mentioned, but we bear in mind at this point that these four empires in the dream each replace the one before by conquest. It is true also that these four empires ruled over all the lands of the previous ones plus extra each time.

There are many misconceived interpretations added onto this text. The later vision of a dreadful and terrible beast (The modern USA is the equivalent of Rome in parallel) is not the Roman empire. Also, even though the feet have toes; (It doesn’t say ten toes, the dreadful beast's ten horns are not the toes.) The end times beast is not the iron kingdom of Rome here. The silver represents the Medes and Persians, though they weren’t one empire - but a union of two - and lastly to clarify, the series of four beasts later in Daniel does not represent these kingdoms at all.

From revelation we learn the little horn of the later vision of Daniel is the reappeared state of Israel. As the "Eighth of the seven" Israel is the survivor of seven kingdoms, Egypt, Assyria, these four in the statue as well as the remade Lion, Bear and leopard beast in the form of the USA and new world order.

The more base nature of the kingdoms in the statue was the intent of the image, so that as time passed the people of Israel would take on the more base nature of the kingdoms within which they survived. Then the stone that breaks all the authority of these four empires replenishes and refreshes the people of God to a state acceptable before God, even to the filling (replenishing) of the whole world. The Kingdom of God will never end.

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